#i wrote 1k today! i've been writing 1k a day every time i sit down to rewrite | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lonelywhalien22 · 1 year

Text

take a break

pairing: seonghwa x reader

rating/genre: fluff, college/school/work au

summary: a warm cup of tea and a break with Seonghwa is just what you need when work becomes overwhelming.

warnings: stress, anxiety, kissing

word count: 1k

song(s) to listen while reading: stone by alessia cara

note: sharing this piece I wrote when college was running me ragged (regular occurrence). I always imagined Seonghwa while writing it for some reason so I hope you enjoy!

You sit at your laptop for the millionth time today, having hopped out of the shower but still in no better of a mood, and certainly not excited to get back to your work. You came over to stay with your boyfriend Seonghwa at his place for the night, promising that you just wanted to finish up one assignment before the two of you could spend the evening together. But after discovering a project deadline that had completely flew under your radar you switched into panic mode. Half an hour turned into two hours and you still didn't see an end to the work in sight. Huffing in frustration, a pout on your face, you think about when the semester will finally be over. A sudden clink sound startles you as a mug of warm tea slides into your view.

"Long day?" you hear Seonghwa say as he gives you a soft smile while pulling a chair up behind you to sit down. He sits on it backwards, so that his front is facing the chair's back and his legs split off onto the chair's sides. You give a sheepish smile at him before looking back towards your laptop on his desk, fingers curling around the warm ceramic as you grab the mug thankfully.

"Yeah. I've just been struggling with this assignment all day and still haven't gotten it done. And now I just feel like I'm falling behind on everything else…I'm just so mentally over it, you know?" As you say the words you still can't look at him directly, afraid that you'll cry if you do. Seonghwa just hums softly, reaching forward to rub your arms slowly before eventually wrapping them around your upper body completely. He scoots his chair closer, laying his head on your shoulder as he stares at your laptop screen for a moment before shifting his attention to your pitiful expression.

"I know you put a lot of pressure on yourself sometimes," Seonghwa starts tentatively, "but you know you don't have to finish everything tonight, yeah?"

"Yeah, I know but it's just so hard to let it go sometimes. I'm just gonna keep thinking about it all night and then tomorrow I'll have to deal with it, which will put me behind on this other project that I haven't even started and I don't even know what I'm doing for that yet and-" Seonghwa sees your spiraling before you can catch it yourself and promptly leans in front of you, kissing the corner of your lips in a swift motion and immediately shutting you up.

"Hey, slow down y/n. Just take it one thing at a time, ok?" he says gently as he takes your chair and rotates it around to face him completely. It's the first time you've taken a moment to look at him fully this evening. His black hair is slightly falling into his eyes from the shower he just took and you finally rest your eyes on his dark orbs. Seonghwa gives you a knowing smirk then, fully aware he has you completely under his trance. This is the exact reason you still shy at looking him directly in the eyes. It feels so intimate and everything's still so new. You still feel those little somersaults in your stomach every time he looks at you.

"How about...you enjoy the tea I made, and give yourself till midnight to work, hm?" Seonghwa's sweet smile returns, giving you a little bit of a break from his charms. "Then promise me you'll stop and come to bed. You can't do any work tomorrow if you're tired either." Finally breaking away from his gaze, you sigh and look down.

"I know, I know…I'll stop at midnight. And I'm sorry I ruined the evening. We were supposed to hang out," you say regretfully. Taking this short break made you realize how much your original plans for coming over had changed. Seonghwa had welcomed you into his place and let you get changed and work undisturbed for hours. Now when you really thought about it you felt guilty.

"You didn't ruin anything, y/n. I'm just happy you came over."

Seonghwa's finger goes under your chin and pulls it back up to face him. He pauses and stares at you for a second, the gears clearly turning in his head before he decides to slowly lean forward and close his eyes, giving you a chance to pull away or stop him if it's too much. But instead you take a breath and close your eyes, staying still, your heart thumping in your chest as Seonghwa tilts his head slightly and finally pushes his lips against yours, pillowy soft and warm. You sigh softly, releasing the breath you've been holding in as his hand reaches for the side of your face, his thumb rubbing across your cheek repetitively. He starts to move his lips slightly, and you follow carefully, caught in his spell. Your hand even begins to creep up his chest slowly, getting caught up in the moment. You feel him smile slightly against your lips, then groan a little as he slows down before completely stopping, pulling away slightly. He stays close though, your noses still touching. You look up at him, eyes wide as you question:

"Did I do something wrong or…?"

"No! No, definitely not. That was amazing," Seonghwa says quickly, rubbing your arm again soothingly, clearly alarmed that you got the wrong idea. "I just...I just don't wanna distract you from your work. But I'm really glad you're feeling more comfortable around me. I know you still get nervous sometimes and I just want to be a source of comfort for you. I hate seeing you stressed."

You can't help but smile shyly at his words. Just being around Seonghwa instantly made you feel calmer. Taking a moment to gather your courage, you nod your head in reassurance to yourself before quickly leaning in and pecking his lips again. You grab his hand, running over it with your thumb. "Thank you. Really. I appreciate you so much."

Now it's his turn to look shocked. Seonghwa quickly gets out of it though, shaking his head a little playfully as he says, "of course. I'll see you in a little bit, ok?"

"Yeah, I'll see you."

#ateez fluff #seonghwa fluff #seonghwa x reader

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mad-madam-m · 6 years

Note

So I'm just curious, how do you get yourself to write? And do you use prompts and if you do where do you get them? I meant to use NaNo to get me to write but it took 4 days into November for me to realize November started so I failed lol. I've been meaning to start this original thing and it's just not...working.

First of all, anon, you could start writing RIGHT NOW (yes, with 10 days left in the month) and you would not fail NaNo. You might not hit 50k (although I know people who have hit 50k in that amount of time, or less), but you won’t fail. NaNoWriMo isn’t about hitting 50,000 words so much as it is about putting a stake in the ground and saying, “Here. Today. I will start writing the project I’ve always wanted to.” And doing it. Doesn’t matter what that project is—original novel, short stories, fic, poetry, revising something, a series of blog posts—NaNo is about just. Fucking. Doing it. And you still have time to Do It.

To answer your questions:

Do you use prompts and if you do, where do you get them?

For original stories, particularly novels, I usually don’t. For fic, particularly short fic I’m writing for events, I do. Tumblr has a wealth of writing prompts that range from “here’s a situation” to “here’s a line of dialogue GO,” and I tend to reblog them under the tags “fic prompts” or “writing prompts.” Honestly, most of them would work for either original fic or fanfic, so if you are a writer who likes to work from prompts, go forth and enjoy!

How do you get yourself to write?

That’s kind of a big question, and uh, the answer to it got long. Very long. (I said once that if you give me half a chance, I’ll talk about writing all the live-long day, and this answer is no exception.)

Different things motivate me for different projects, and as with all writing-related advice, YMMV, but here’s a few things that really help for getting myself to write:

1) Develop your story.

The current original story I’m working on, for example, I have not really had to struggle to get myself to write at all because 1) I’m stupid excited about it and 2) I have developed the hell out of it.

I’ve talked before about outlining my stuff here, so I won’t go too much into it again; suffice it to say that I have done about the same amount of development on my current original story that I had on ADA by the time I started writing. I started around the very end of September developing my characters and spent a good chunk of October working on setting, worldbuilding, plot, and finally my notecards.

Shockingly, having some idea of what’s happening and where I’m going is making this story easier to write.

Right? Like WHO’D HAVE THOUGHT.

Because of that, I’ve been excited about writing my story, so getting myself to write on it has been (comparatively) a cakewalk.

That’s not to say any of the writing is good (oh God no) or that there aren’t parts that need fixing, or that I haven’t been stuck. But it’s been stuck like “how do I describe seeing a tree-covered mountain in the middle of fall from the POV of someone who has never seen something like this” rather than “I have no fucking clue what happens next uh…”

The stories I struggle the most with writing are the ones that I’ve worked the least on developing. The stories that have been the easiest to write have been the ones I’ve spent at least a month doing prep work on before I ever start drafting.

2) Love your story.

Being in love with a story makes it a lot easier to write, at least for me. Because here’s the thing, ideas are easy.

If you’re a creative person, you’re going to end up with a file of story ideas—maybe prompts you liked, dialogue that stuck with you, one of those “humans are space orcs” tumblr posts that’s just really clicking in your brain—that will be longer than you could conceivably write if you had a hundred lifetimes. That’s okay! That’s great. But it means a lot of them are never going to get past the idea stage.

For me, the stories that get finished—the ones that not only get started but actually make it through the first draft and then three rounds of editing and revisions—are the ideas that I’ve been percolating on for months, if not longer. They’ve been cooking in the back of my brain while I’ve been doing other things, sorting themselves out, and most importantly: they will not let me go.

Coming up with ideas is easy. Finding an idea that will last and sustain a story and my interest for at least a year, if not longer? That’s harder.

Y’all know how much I’ve been talking about Tiger & Bunny over the past year? We’re talking that level of obsession with a story that I want to write, whether it’s fic or original. Sometimes it takes months or years for all the puzzle pieces to come together. Sometimes the whole thing will congeal within a few weeks, or there will be one crucial piece of story that will just make EVERYTHING come together, I will literally shout “OH MY FUCKING GOD” and that’s it, I’m off to the races. (In this particular case, it wasn’t anything I’d done in the first two weeks of poking at steampunk-y ideas; it was the realization that I could put a circus on an airship. The whole story just went WHOOSH after that.)

BUT. But. Sometimes you don’t have that. These stories are great and I love them and they remind me why I love writing so much (and if you’re writing something that’s gonna be 90k+, like I have a tendency to do, you need to be in love with it, IMO), but sometimes you’re in situations where you just have to get it done. In those cases:

3) Resort to bribery.

I’ve been poking at the third part of Alpha & Emissary, oh, basically since I posted the second part. My problem is that my fandom focus has been, shall we say, split for the past year. *coughs delicately, shoves Tiger & Bunny fics under the bed*

But here’s the thing: I hate having a published WIP on AO3 (it’s why I don’t publish long!fics until they’re completely drafted and mostly edited). I hate—HATE—having an unfinished series on AO3.

So that’s the rub: I have an unfinished series that I want to finish because I hate that it’s not finished. I also have a new fandom that is wresting my attention and inspiration away from said series. What’s a girl to do?

A girl tells herself she can’t write any more Tiger & Bunny fic until she finishes this one WIP, that’s what she does.

And it’s motivated me to sit my ass down and work on that WIP, because goddammit, I have a “but there was only one bed” TaiBani fic that I would really like to have up by New Year’s.

Your bribery will be different. Maybe you get to watch 1 episode of your favorite show per every 1k you write, or you get to try a new knitting project when you finish this short story. Maybe you binge-watch an entire season of your favorite anime if you exceed your NaNo goal. Or you write 50 words and get a cookie. The point is, find what works for you to get it done.

4) Figure out a minimum daily goal and stick with it.

For me, this was 500 words a day. 500 words. That’s it. That’s one 30-minute word sprint for me. That’s something I can do without stressing myself out.

Because of this point and point 3, I wrote more than 7000 words on a story I’d been stuck on for the better part of a year before I had to stop to work on NaNo stuff. Another 7k, and I’ll probably have it finished.

Your minimum word count will almost certainly be different. Maybe it’s 300 words a day, maybe it’s 1000. Hell, maybe it’s 100 words. Again, find what works for you, what you can write regularly without stressing yourself out.

Another important thing: If I didn’t hit 500 words, I didn’t beat myself up about it. Maybe I wrote 350. Or 220. Or just 93. The point is, did I write? Yes? Then I did good. I got myself a sentence or a paragraph closer to finishing. And it all adds up.

(And hey, you don’t have to write every day. I do, or I try to, because that’s what works for me. If it stresses you out to do so, then find another way to make it work.)

5) Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines.

This one’s hard because I can rarely keep a deadline that’s not set by an external source. If you tell me on December 20 that you need a story by December 22? Then on December 22, you’ll have a story, edited and ready to post. But when it comes to something I set for myself, the chances of a deadline working are 50/50.

That being said, it is something that helps me keep on track and even if I don’t finish something by a self-imposed deadline, it does get me writing.

6) Sprint with friends!

NaNo is really great for this because all your writer friends are coming out of the woodwork going I need to hit 5k by the end of today, will you sprint with me? Sometimes it just helps to have that kind of accountability. You all get together (I’ve used Discord, Google Hangouts, IRC, and Twitter DMs for this), set a timer, and write for 15 minutes or 20 minutes or 30 minutes. Then, when the time’s up, you post your word count, everybody congratulates everybody else, and then you take a break before doing the next one.

Sprints are the reason I’ve been able to make some pretty significant headway on my word counts, and few things get me writing like knowing I’m going to have to tell everybody in my group what my word count is in 30 minutes or less. >.>

Like I said earlier, YMMV on all of these. What works for me may work for you, or it might not. But if you aren’t sure, it’s worth giving it a shot.

Happy writing!

#Anonymous #M answers #long post #M talks writing #can I count this toward my NaNo count for the day or nah

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